I’ve had a tough time explaining to others why,
contrary to much public commentary, I found Pontius Pilate more contemptible
figure in the Gibson film than Caiaphas, the Jewish high priest. A colleague
sent me this comment from a Christian friend, which nails it:
I have to say, I found Caiaphas entirely sympathetic: he dismisses
charges that cannot be substantiated, asks Christ a direct question, hears
an answer that he must take to be blasphemy, and then sets himself
irrevocably upon the blasphemer’s destruction. Pilate, by contrast, is a
contemptible bureaucrat, agonizing over the possible
consequences for himself of either executing or releasing Christ, and
finally condemning a man he believes innocent to death as the most prudent
course. It says something about our age. Of course we cannot understand
Caiaphas: he is a religious “extremist,” he acts on principle, he seeks to
preserve the purity of his faith and his people from a heretic, he is
uncompromising. But Pilate is much to our taste: he is indecisive and
relativist, we feel the profundity of his “quid est veritas?”, he has
“issues” to work out, he is moved by emotion, and we can see that he feels
bad about what he is doing (and what you feel, after all, is what is
important). Feckless and contemptible and relativistic is what we are, and
our very image of the ethical person; we know that resolute religious
conviction is intolerant and wicked and evil. And thus the irony of it all:
it is because the people that make such complaints are the sort who
understand Pilate but hate Caiaphas that they are also disposed to despise
Mel Gibson so passionately.